Wiardgroup

thanks doc!

i'm thinking about feedback/feedforward topologies now too, i.e.
whether to take the control signal from the input or the output of the
patch. i'm currently taking the signal from before the borg2 which
equals feedforward, but am wondering if things would sound different
if i take it from the output (feedback). i can't really get my head
around it at the moment, but i'm sure it'll all become clear once i'm
sat in front of my modular again!

best wishes,

gregg

--- In wiardgroup@yahoogroups.com, "drmabuce" <drmabuce@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Gregg
> This is a very cool and unusual use for the borg, and it makes a lot
> of sense that it would impart a richer sound than more 'hi-fi'
> full-range VCA. 
>  (there's a very nice article on 'classic'-period compressors here:)
> http://www.cranesong.com/compressorarticle.html
>   Everybody knows how golden-eared, real-deal, engineers treasure
> those some of those old tube compressors, from UA or Fairchild. i'm
> convinced the venerable designers of those gadgets were trying their
> level best to create a full-range VCA but there's only so much you can
>   do with a production budget, pricey ,complex, transformers and
> vacuum tubes...fortunately!...as it turned out!
>   The tube gain-cell element in those designs does not 'open' the gain
> at all frequencies at the same rate across the spectrum. Those curves
> have been analyzed to the gnat's ass by the plug-in developers in the
> frantic effort to emulate them in software and the results are
> maddeningly (for the tweakheads trying to map them anyway), NON-linear
> not only across the frequency spectrum but across the range of input
> levels the device will tolerate... (Good luck with that, folks!)
> 
> My point is that these hallowed compressors act way more like Buchla's
> 'gate' circuits than they do like a nice, wide-spectrum, modern
> gain-cells. It was those selfsame Buchla LP-gates that underpinned
> Grant's thinking when he set out to design the Borg.
> 
>   The modern Joe Meek compressors do this trick well too, but without
> all the fun flexible control 'perversions' to which you allude. i do
> know via the studio grapevine that certain well-known industrial music
> practitioners have been known to use an MS-20's filter (set to NO-res)
> and Env. Follower as a 'compressor' on heavily distorted guitars and
> that they regard this patch as a 'trade secret' (oops!)
> ;'>
> ...yet-again, creating a missing link between the 'colorful'
> compressor and the low-pass gate.
> 
>  Congrats on a particularly flexible range of flavors in this already
> exotic category, and thanks for sharing it.
> 
> -doc